Arema FC

The animosity that defines Arema FC has nothing to do with trophies.

The club came out of that identity in the first place. Acub Zaenal pushed for a side that would represent Malang in the national league, and the registration went through a notary, Prama Haryano, as deed number 58 on 11 August 1987. What followed was a sequence of owners written into the name: PS Arema Malang until the tobacco company PT Bentoel put its name on the shirt in 1995, then Arema Indonesia FC in 2009, Arema Cronus after the Bakrie group bought in during 2013, and Arema FC since 2017.

The first title came in the Galatama season of 1992/93, when the league was still a semi-professional competition run separately from the regional Perserikatan. Relegation followed later, and the club climbed back through Divisi Satu in 2004 before winning the Indonesian Cup in 2005 and retaining it a year on. The league championship arrived in 2009/10.

Stadion Kanjuruhan held 42,449 before 1 October 2022. The disaster that night, after a match against the club from Surabaya, closed the ground; the rebuilt stadium holds 21,603.

Acub Zaenal is remembered in Malang less for what he achieved elsewhere than for the fact that the club exists at all.